Married couples who quarrel bitterly every day may really need each other as deeply as those who appear to be desperately in love.
Longevity, like intelligence and good looks and health and strength of character, is largely a matter of genetic heritage. Choose your parents with care.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that many aspects of our life, including longevity, are influenced by our genetic background and the choices we make regarding our families.
Edward Abbey's quote points to the idea that certain intrinsic qualities, such as longevity, are not merely the result of personal choices or lifestyle, but rather are deeply rooted in our genetic heritage. This implies that understanding and acknowledging the role of our ancestry in shaping our lives is crucial, and it humorously suggests the importance of 'choosing' our parents wisely, hinting at the inherent limitations we have in determining the circumstances of our birth.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can motivate discussions in health seminars about the genetic factors influencing longevity.
More from Edward Abbey
All quotes βI love America because it is a confused, chaotic mess - and I hope we can keep it this way for at least another thousand years. The permissive society is the free society.
If it's knowledge and wisdom you want, then seek out the company of those who do real work for an honest purpose.
The earth is real. Only a fool, milking his cow, denies the cow's reality.
I believe in nothing that I cannot touch, kiss, embrace.... The rest is only hearsay.
Why can't we simply borrow what is useful to us from Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, especially Zen, as we borrow from Christianity, science, American Indian traditions and world literature in general, including philosophy, and let the rest go hang? Borrow what we need but rely principally upon our own senses, common sense and daily living experience.
Similar quotes
When you're under a microscope from an early age, you realize that people aren't always going to like you. And that's OK. And you're going to fail publicly, and that's OK, too.
People go on postponing everything that is meaningful. Tomorrow they will laugh; today, money has to be gathered... more money, more power, more things, more gadgets. Tomorrow they will love - today there is no time. But tomorrow never comes, and one day they find themselves burdened with all kinds of gadgets, burdened with money. They have come to the top of the ladder - and there is nowhere to go except to jump in a lake.
The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not "get over" the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same nor would you want to.
Life sometimes gives you a second chance.
It's so curious: one can resist tears and 'behave' very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips from a drawer... and everything collapses.
There is never a sudden revelation, a complete and tidy explanation for why it happened, or why it ends, or why or who you are. You want one and I want one, but there isn't one. It comes in bits and pieces, and you stitch them together wherever they fit, and when you are done you hold yourself up, and still there are holes and you are a rag doll, invented, imperfect. And yet you are all that you have, so you must be enough. There is no other way.